[jillesvangurp]

I tend to prefer that over CSV as well. But usually I go for ndjson files since that's a bit more flexible for more complex data and easier to deal with when parsing. But it depends on the context what I use.

However, a good reason to use TSV/CSV is import/export in spread sheets is really easy. TSV used to have an obscure advantage: google sheets could export that but not CSV. They've since fixed that and you can do both now.

And of course, getting CSV out of a database is straightforward as well. Both databases and spreadsheets are of course tabular data; so the format is a good fit for that.

Spreadsheets are nice when you are dealing with non technical people. Makes it easier to involve them for editing / managing content. Also, a spread sheet is a great substitute for admin tools to edit this data. I once was on a project where we payed some poor freelancer to work on some convoluted tool to edit data. In the end, the customer hated it and we unceremoniously replaced that with a spreadsheet (my suggestion). Much easier to edit stuff with those. They loved it. The poor guy worked for months on that tool with the help of a lot of misguided UX, design and product management. It got super complicated and it was tedious to use. Complete waste of time. All they needed was a simple spreadsheet and some way to get the data inside deployed. They already knew how to use those so they were all over that.

[imtringued]

If you have non technical people please for the love of god start using .xlsx directly.

Nobody on this planet wants to use e.g. Libre office to import your CSV file and save it as xslx so they can open it in Excel.

[cowthulhu]

Excel can open, modify and save CSVs, in my experience some users won’t even notice they’re not editing a native excel file.